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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



beneath the range of the roots of most other crops, 

 loosening and dividing the soil deeply ; the culti- 

 vation it requires is of a kind to keep the surface 

 of the land mellow, and free from weeds ; the har- 

 vesting also mellows the soil, and it is left in a 

 clean, superb condition for a suceeding crop, wheth- 

 er of corn or other field crop. 



If you wish to raise a large crop of carrots, at 

 the least practicable expense, you will be likely to 

 best attain your object by selecting a warm loam, 

 deep and fertile, and thickly swarded with grass. 

 Manure and prepare the land in either of the two 

 following ways; spread twenty loads of green ma- 

 nure on the grass, and plow nine inches deep, in 

 the handsomest style of the art, then spread twen- 

 ty loads of fine compost on the inverted furrows, 

 and haiTOw and cross-harrow until the manure 

 and soil are finely pulverized and intimately min- 

 gled to the depth of three or four inches ; — or, 

 first plow handsomely, this fall, nine inches deep, 

 or deeper if the land will bear it, letting the fur- 

 row-slices remain through the winter as laid by the 

 plow, exposed to the action of the atmosphere, 

 and the last of May following, spread forty loads 

 of compost, of say, thirty to thirty-five bushels, 

 each, then harrow so as to distribute and pulver- 

 ize the manure and loosen the surface of the land, 

 then plow lightly four or five inches deep, and har- 

 row lightly after plowing. Sow your seed in drills 

 two feet apart, which is as near as is convenient 

 for after-cultivation. By no means put near the 

 surface manure containing the seeds of grass and 

 weeds, in a state allowing of germination ; for it 

 will subject you to additional and unnecessary ex- 

 pense ; but rather apply old compost, in which 

 the vitality of all seeds is destroyed, and where 

 the salts of the manure are fully developed and 

 prepared for immediate influence. Whatever grass 

 or weeds do spring up, should be attended to very 

 soon after they appear, for thus you may subdue 

 them with much less labor than at a later period, 

 when they have got firm foothold. Your ground 

 thus selected and prepared, will not be half so 

 weedy as stubble or old ground ; the decomposing 

 sod beneath will keep the earth up light ; the tap- 

 root of the carrot will easily penetrate the sod, 

 these finding moisture and food for the crop in the 

 latter stages of its growth ; and if the season is tol- 

 erably favorable, you will harvest a great quanti- 

 ty of carrots. If you wish to raise the stoutest 

 corn in the neighborhood, spread a good coat of 

 manure on this carrot-field, in the spring, and turn 

 it under five or six inches deep, with a light plow, 

 still leaving the decaying sod beneath, and plant 

 with corn. The corn-roots can then range deep 

 and wide, at will, finding abundant nourishment 

 wherever they go, and if the season is propitious, 

 you will probably harvest a great crop. 



2. The effect produced upon the soil by a crop 

 of sweet corn, is not materially different from that 

 by crops of other varieties of corn. If sweet corn 

 is gathered before the ear is filled, or mature, the 

 land will be much less exhausted than if the crop 

 i.: matured ; and so of all other corn. Sweet corn 

 makes an exceedingly valuable crop, exhausting 

 the land but little, when sown broadcast or in 

 drills, and cut up from day to day in August and 

 September, and fed green to milch cows, at a time 

 wnen pastures are dry and short ; or cut up car 

 ly in September, and cured in shocks for winter 

 fodder ; or planted in hills, in the usual way, the 



ears picked green, and boiled with vegetables, or 

 alone, and fed to fatting swine, and the stalks fed 

 green to the cows, or cured for winter fodder. 

 Large early ears of sweet corn, pretty well ma- 

 tured, and picked, braided together, and hung in 

 a dry airy place, may in the winter be shelled, 

 ground, and prepared for those rustical and truly 

 excellent Yankee dishes, known as "hominy" and 

 "fried hasty pudding," being superior to all oth- 

 er corn for these purposes. Milch cows, fed in the 

 winter upon part hay and part the cured stalks of 

 sweet corn, will give more and richer milk, cream 

 or butter, than if fed with hay alone. 



3. Store swine are cheaply wintered on cooked 

 vegetables, — such as cabbages, ruta bagas, beets, 

 pumpkins, squashes, carrots, small potatoes, ap- 

 ples, &c, &c. ; and if these articles are mingled 

 and cooked together in good variety, the appetite, 

 thrift and growth of the swine will thereby be 

 greatly promoted. It is a common error with far- 

 mers to set too small kettles for this business of 

 cooking vegetables. It is far better to provide a 

 good large cauldron, one that admits of a mixture 

 of various articles, and will at one heating cook a 



oodly quantity of food. Boiled or steamed car- 

 rots furnish very nutritious and healthy food for 

 store swine ; and for breeding sows they are partic- 

 ularly valuable, giving strength and thrift without 

 fattening them too much, and promoting a full 

 flow of milk. 



The most precise and extensive arrangements 

 for growing and fattening swine upon cooked food 

 with which I am familiar, may be seen at the farm 

 of Leonard Stone, Esq., Watertown, Mass. He 

 purchases at Brighton market, each spring and 

 fall, 50 to GO shoats, weighing aboutlOO lbs. each, 

 feeds them six months, then slaughters and sells 

 them in Boston, when they weigh from 275 to 300 

 lbs. each, dressed. He has a cauldron holding 

 600 gallons, set in an arch. Into this, in the sum- 

 mer and fall, he puts the various refuse vegetables 

 derived from his market gardening, — such as cab- 

 bages, melons, apples, potatoes, beets, carrots, to- 

 matoes, squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers, mangos, 

 green corn in the ear, etc.,— the greater the vari- 

 ety the better, over the whole spread six bushels 

 of meal, the contents are then boiled, and before 

 feeding, are mashed and mixed up together. For 

 the last six weeks before the hogs are slaughtered, 

 they have an increased proportion of meal, to fat- 

 ten them highly and harden the meat. The win- 

 ter swine are fed in like manner, wdth all such 

 vegetables as will keep in the winter, — such as car- 

 rots, potatoes, ruta bagas, beets, &c. 



4. I am not familiar with any experiments in 

 raising successive crops of corn on the same piece 

 of land, without manure after the first year, car- 

 rying off only the ears of corn, and giving back 

 the balance of the product to the land. I cannot 

 therefore give you precise information in regard 

 to the policy of such a course of tillage ; but will 

 say, as my theoretical opinion, not fortified by 

 practice, that such a course would probably not 

 prove good farming. Although by annually re- 

 turning to the soil the root, stalk and leaf of its 

 product, the deterioration might be gradual, yet it 

 would probably be sure, because that other por- 

 tion carried off, namely, the matured seed, would 

 be precisely the portion which would cost it the 

 greater effort and sap its fertility the most to pro- 

 duce. Mother earth Observes a law of rotation in her 



